No doubt you have seen those family vlogging channels floating around on YouTube in the last few years. They’re everywhere. They typically show a happy family with kids ranging of all ages doing fun stuff or just their usual daily routine. However, when the camera is off, reality can be very different.
Today we’ll look at why family vlogging channels are sad and why you shouldn’t support them by consuming their content.
I personally don’t watch any family vlog channels but I have watched a few episodes across different channels in the past few years and I have gotta say, they can be very entertaining. It makes me imagine what my future family would be like. It can seem all harmless and innocent but it also carries with it unspoken grief.
Table of Contents
People are posting naked content of their children on the internet
Some families with small kids like to have their kids run around naked on the beach. I personally don’t think parents should allow their kids to run around naked anywhere ever.
Other visitors to the beach will take pictures. How can they prevent someone from “accidentally” taking pictures of their children when their kids are at their most vulnerable? I wouldn’t want some stranger to have access to naked pictures of me as a kid that they can see again and again anytime they want.
It’s not even just about the pictures that could be taken. It’s parents’ job to protect their children and that includes any unwanted stares at their kids’ private body parts.
So the shock I felt as I stumbled upon a birthing video from a medical doctor’s YouTube channel I had been following for years was unpleasant. The whole world can see the very first moments of him being alive — in his birthing suit. The dad filmed the process and I’m sure he didn’t mind that his wife just showed the whole world his firstborn’s nakedness to the entire world. Videos that can be downloaded and screenshots taken. Even if they do take it down, it’ll be too late, it’s in some pedophile’s computer forever.
Those children will grow up and they will find out that their private parts have been on display for the whole world to see. Their peers will be able to find naked pictures of them. The embarrassment they would feel should cause any parents to rethink before exposing their children to the world.
There was a case of a man suing a band for using a naked picture of him as a baby to promote their brand and profit from the shocking nature of the album cover.
It’s safe to say that people do grow to find naked pictures of themselves as children to be a private matter and not something that should be shared with the whole world.
What if children want to be part of the vlogs?
I know some of you may think that most family vloggers don’t show naked pictures and videos of their children and therefore, it’s fine. That couldn’t be further from the case.
I don’t want to drop any names or include any screenshots but there are a lot of YouTube channels like “8 P…s” that do film their children against their will.
You can see in some of their videos how their children begged the mom to not film them shopping for their first bra, having their first shave, talking about “the talk”, etc. But she carried on filming.
The kids have also expressed on camera how they don’t have any friends at school. I mean who could blame them. Imagine walking into a school knowing that there are kids who watched them pick out a bra or get sent to a camp for troubled teens. If it were me, I’d distance myself from everyone from school because it’d be hard to stand the whispers and snickers.
Exploiting children for profit on YouTube
There’s no other way to label this but these children are being exploited for money by their parents. It may have started out innocent. They just wanted to share their lives with the world. Maybe mostly for their own extended family members to watch. But as their channel grew, so does the money and that’s when the parents may start to not act in the best interest of their children but instead, for the money.
It’s disgusting what these parents are doing knowing full well just how uncomfortable the children are. They have turned their children into a money-making machine and they can’t stop (otherwise, they may have to get an actual 9–5 job). It’s become their daily job to expose their children to the world.
Many of these family vlogger parents simply don’t care about how their children feel and what their children want. It’s sad that these kids have to put up with unreasonable parent figures. It’s either they are forced to be put on camera or, they risk the wrath of their parents off camera.
Using your baby to become Instagram famous
In many ways, using your children to gain Instagram followers and subsequently, sponsorship deals have the same vibe as family vloggers profiting off of exposing their children.
Kids of that age may not even understand what social media is. Imagine growing up in front of the whole world, having your entire life on display for anyone to see.
Strangers across the globe know what you look like naked as a baby, the date of your birth, the time you peed your bed, all your ridiculous temper tantrums, and meltdowns as a kid, your childhood potty training journey, the age of your first period, you entire footage of you getting punished by your parents for misbehaving, what weird interests you had as a teenager, your reaction to knowing that your mom is having another baby, etc.
To many of us, those are private matters and at that age, children can’t consent to have any part of their lives shared on the internet.
Their future partners
These children will become an adult someday and meet potential partners who can go and search up their entire life history from the moment they were born to when they went off to college and beyond. To me, that seems like an awful thing. It’s like living your entire life under a surveillance camera and anyone gets to rewatch any part of your life anytime they wish. You’d never be able to start fresh with anyone because they’d already know what your entire life was like before you even met them.
The start of social media
YouTube first came out in 2005 and Instagram first came out in 2010. Some 17-year-olds out there have their entire lives up on YouTube.
Many of those Instagram babies are still yet too young to sue their parents or voice their displeasure with having every aspect of their lives made public to the world without their consent.
But with time, as these children become adults, we should see more cases of children suing their parents for posting footage and pictures of them without their consent.
While I do think sharing a few pictures and videos of your children (fully-clothed) can be harmless as long as it isn’t done to the extreme, many of the parents today who make a living off their children’s exposure should start to look for other ways of making money.
Family vlogging has an expiration date and the clock is counting down. The time will come with mass suing and maybe even legal actions will take place.
Final thought
If you have a family vlogging channel or a parenting blog, I would recommend you to go easy on sharing details of your kids with the world. Just because they aren’t saying anything now doesn’t mean they won’t in the future when the damages have already been done.
